


Listen, David

by houdini74



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Boys In Love, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Reading Aloud, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23560936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houdini74/pseuds/houdini74
Summary: Patrick likes to read to David.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 75
Kudos: 240





	Listen, David

**Author's Note:**

> This is just straight fluff. And books. That's it.

When he looks back, on those days when he’s feeling particularly nostalgic, David thinks that Patrick surprised him the first moment they’d met and hasn’t stopped since. It’s what he remembers most when he thinks of their first meeting, their first weeks getting to know each other. Not many things pierce the jaded persona of David Rose, but Patrick had. From that first moment and in the weeks and months that followed, there have, in fact, been too many surprises for David to count. 

In those early days, he’d waited for every surprise to turn sour, grasping on to the tortured satisfaction of having his expectations met by Rachel and then holding even more tightly to having them exceeded, once again, by Patrick. Over time, the swirly feeling in his stomach shifts from anxious to delighted, and he learns to stop equating surprises with the twist of a knife in his back. 

It takes a while for David’s favourite surprise to emerge. It isn’t until the frantic desperation of their nights together starts to ease into an occasional domesticity that there is the time or the space for their evenings to evolve into something more than the hurried removal of clothes and the press of skin. And so, it has taken an equivalent amount of time for David to discover that Patrick loves to read to him.

He can’t remember anyone ever reading to him. Surely Adelina or one of the other staff must have, when he was very small, in a textbook attempt to do the right thing and instill a love of the written word. And no doubt his mother had recited her lines to him, filling his head with strange soap opera deaths and even stranger lives. But no one had read to him because they thought he would enjoy it, because they wanted to share something that made them laugh, or made them think, or made them love. No one until Patrick.

“Listen to this,” he says, his hand soft on David’s hip.

 _If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more._

Patrick hums the words into his skin and they ripple through to his core, shaking and enveloping him at the same time. It’s one of those times when Patrick sees him too clearly, and the desire to flinch away becomes overwhelming. “So much.” He mumbles the words, but Patrick hears and pulls him closer.

More than the act of being read to is the surprise of what Patrick choses to read. David expected the business books and stories about baseball, but not the poetry or the recipe books or the romance novels. His husband, David has discovered, or perhaps he has always known, is a romantic.

“Listen.” Patrick’s voice is measured as he follows the rhythm of the words.

_Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin_  
_Dance me through the panic ‘til I'm gathered safely in_  
_Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove_  
_Dance me to the end of love_

Over David’s insincere protests, Patrick pulls him off the couch, guiding him gracelessly around the living room, humming the three quarter time waltz under his breath as they avoid the coffee table and other furniture until they are both laughing and breathless.

Most often David curls up beside him, worming his way down in the bed to rest his head on Patrick’s chest or sliding across on the couch to lay his head in his lap so he can hear, not just the words, but the cadence of Patrick’s voice and the beating of his heart. 

Sometimes Patrick only reads a sentence or a paragraph before the temptation of David’s closeness proves too great and the book tumbles to the floor as lips meet skin and other distractions prevail. But other times Patrick cards his fingers through David’s hair, removing them only to flip the pages, reading aloud until his voice goes creaky and soft, the two of them giggling over the descriptions in a romance novel or reminiscing over a childhood favourite.

“Listen.” Laughter bubbles up as Patrick reads aloud.

_I was trembling, afraid to put him to flight. I did not know what to do, what he would like. I kissed his neck, the span of his chest, and tasted the salt. He seemed to swell beneath my touch, to ripen. He smelled like almonds and earth. He pressed against me, crushing my lips to wine._

“Shall I crush your lips like wine, baby?” His husband grins down at him, the spark in his eyes met by David’s own, as helpless giggles become kisses become something more.

Before Patrick— as with so many things, David’s life is divided into epochs marked by before and after Patrick— before Patrick, reading books was a private thing, something David kept for himself. If books were to be shared, it was to make a statement, to show off the important things he’s thinking about. But now, in this time that is most decidedly after Patrick, or perhaps more accurately, during Patrick, he has learned, for the first time, that this too is something that can be shared.

It’s a Wednesday this first time the words slip out. David is lying on the bench in the front garden of their new house, legs sprawled, book in hand, his head in Patrick’s lap. Patrick is reading his own book, he’s already interrupted David twice to read passages aloud but this time, in this moment, it’s David who speaks. 

“Listen to this.” He fumbles at the start, unused to translating the words from the page to his tongue.

_Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up._

Patrick’s hand tightens in his, and his breath ghosts across David’s skin. “You’ve messed me up so badly, David.” His lips find David’s temple, at the edge of his hairline. “Do it again.”

**Author's Note:**

> The books referenced in order are:  
> Jane Austen - Emma  
> Leonard Cohen - Dance Me to the End of Love from Stranger Music  
> Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles  
> Neil Gaiman - The Kindly Ones


End file.
